WASHINGTON -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- As he awaits a crucial progress report on Iraq , President Bush will try to put a twist on comparisons of the war to Vietnam by invoking the historical lessons of that conflict to argue against pulling out .

President Bush pauses Tuesday during a news conference at the North American Leaders summit in Canada .

On Wednesday in Kansas City , Missouri , Bush will tell members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars that `` then , as now , people argued that the real problem was America 's presence and that if we would just withdraw , the killing would end , '' according to speech excerpts released Tuesday by the White House .

`` Three decades later , there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam War and how we left , '' Bush will say .

`` Whatever your position in that debate , one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is that the price of America 's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens , whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like ` boat people , ' 're - education camps ' and ` killing fields , ' '' the president will say .

The president will also make the argument that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today 's terrorists by compromising U.S. credibility , citing a quote from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden that the American people would rise against the Iraq war the same way they rose against the war in Vietnam , according to the excerpts .

`` Here at home , some can argue our withdrawal from Vietnam carried no price to American credibility , but the terrorists see things differently , '' Bush will say .

On Tuesday , Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said , `` President Bush 's attempt to compare the war in Iraq to past military conflicts in East Asia ignores the fundamental difference between the two . Our nation was misled by the Bush Administration in an effort to gain support for the invasion of Iraq under false pretenses , leading to one of the worst foreign policy blunders in our history .

`` While the President continues to stay-the-course with his failed strategy in Iraq , paid for by the taxpayers , American lives are being lost and there is still no political solution within the Iraqi government . It is time to change direction in Iraq , and Congress will again work to do so in the fall . ''

The White House is billing the speech , along with another address next week to the American Legion , as an effort to `` provide broader context '' for the debate over the upcoming Iraq progress report by Gen. David Petraeus , the top U.S. military commander , and Ryan Crocker , the U.S. ambassador in Baghdad .

President Bush has frequently asked lawmakers -- and the American people -- to withhold judgment on his troop `` surge '' in Iraq until the report comes out in September . Watch Bush criticize the Iraqi government ''

It is being closely watched on Capitol Hill , particularly by Republicans nervous about the political fallout from an increasingly unpopular war .

Earlier this month , Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he would wait for the report before deciding when a drawdown of the 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq might begin .

Bush 's speeches Wednesday and next week are the latest in a series of attempts by the White House to try to reframe the debate over Iraq , as public support for the war continues to sag .

A recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll found that almost two-thirds of Americans -- 64 percent -- now oppose the Iraq war , and 72 percent say that even if Petraeus reports progress , it wo n't change their opinion .

The poll also found a great deal of skepticism about the report ; 53 percent said they do not trust Petraeus to give an accurate assessment of the situation in Iraq .

In addition to his analogy to Vietnam , Bush in Wednesday 's speech will invoke other historical comparisons from Asia , including the U.S. defeat and occupation of Japan after World War II and the Korean War in the 1950s , according to the excerpts .

`` In the aftermath of Japan 's surrender , many thought it naive to help the Japanese transform themselves into a democracy . Then , as now , the critics argued that some people were simply not fit for freedom , '' Bush will say . `` Today , in defiance of the critics , Japan ... stands as one of the world 's great free societies . ''

Speaking about the Korean War , Bush will note that at the time `` critics argued that the war was futile , that we never should have sent our troops in , or that America 's intervention was divisive here at home . ''

`` While it is true that the Korean War had its share of challenges , America never broke its word , '' Bush will say . `` Without America 's intervention during the war , and our willingness to stick with the South Koreans after the war , millions of South Koreans would now be living under a brutal and repressive regime . '' E-mail to a friend

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President Bush to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars on Wednesday

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Bush to say that withdrawing from Vietnam emboldened today 's terrorists

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Speech will be latest White House attempt to try to reframe the debate over Iraq